Have you ever had a real emergency while diving? What happened?

Question

Have you ever lost a buddy, run out of air, or lost the boat? What happened and how did you recover?

Answer 1

thankfully not yet. But I do know someone that went diving with a friend and wasn't able to stay put for their safety stop and ended up drifting to the top without realizing it and they did get some decompression sickness and had to go to a chamber. I wasn't there so I don't know the details, just heard the story. Must have sucked. Don't know why they couldn't stay down at the safety stop, might have been the one holding the surface marker and maybe that pulled him up, or he still had some air in his BC that he couldn't dump or thought he dumped... not sure.

Answer 2

No I plan to not have one and that is the key. Plan the dive and dive the plan. However things can happen and being prepared as much as you can will help minimize the situation.  I hope to never have to deal with it.

Answer 3

When getting ready for a rebreather dive the regulator on my  bailout bottle failed or didn't act right. A friend I was driving with loaned me one of his regs. I checked it out and it breathed easy but was being distracted by a lot of other things going on. Off diving we went at 105 feet I had a rebreather failure, tried to clear it a couple of times but when trying to read my gauges for some reason I was having eye problem. So I went to my bailout bottle and when I took a breath I got nothing but water while choking I took in more water. My dive buddy looked at me and realized the 2nd stage reg he gave me had a part missing. No wonder while out of the water it breathed so smooth. So he gave me his bottle and we swarm out. As for my eyes I found out I had serious eye problems and have to have shots in my eye every eleven weeks. But I swam away from the experience and being distracted almost cost me.

Comments

Wow, this is an impressive story! So glad you swam away - and thank you for sharing. I think it is so important to share failure stories so that we are all more aware of what can go wrong and how to prepare.

Answer 4

The closest to an emergency I have had was getting caught in current and pulled away from my buddy and group trying to descend without using the anchor line. I was completely alone and could not see the wreck at all or any other divers. I had to make a free controlled ascent and safety stop all while figuring I am getting further away from the dive boat. Did not panic, got to surface, signaled dive boat, they came and picked me up. Whew!

Comments

that must have been terrifying! Glad you made it back!

Answer 5

good points all! I also hope to never have a real emergency, but part of my planning is always considering different things that can go wrong so I like to ask this question :-|